The Squire Quartet. Brian Aldiss
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a man beyond family and native heath, he loses his sense of reality. I always say it. A protective sense of reality. A man’s achievements in the material world are often seen to be counterbalanced by deterioration in his personal happiness. Supposing our waitress to marry the Prince of Wales tomorrow, she would undoubtedly come to look back on her humble days in this coffee shop as a time of security and happiness. However she may see the matter now.’
‘It’s not like you to recommend a dull way of life as a paradigm of better things.’
Nicholas Dobson snorted, as if he knew his uncle better, but Willie ignored him.
The old man wiped his lips on the white handkerchief. ‘Don’t be angry, Tom, I’m only offering a warning.’
‘I’ve managed to look after my own affairs fairly well so far. Why don’t you approve?’
Willie looked offended. ‘You are making connections between things I did not intend. That’s always your clever habit of thought, I understand that.’
‘What are you accusing me of?’
Uncle Willie stuck his pipe in his mouth and began lighting it. He said, behind a cloud of smoke, ‘You want to stay home a bit more – that was your father’s mistake.’
Squire leaned forward so that the people sitting at the next table did not hear what he said. ‘Father would have approved strongly of my present work. I care deeply about it, I wouldn’t care if I never went back to the firm. It’s little enough, but I’m good at it, I think. In me there’s a lot of the family’s romanticism. I want to make a contribution to the thought of our country, I want to produce a cultural statement which I believe will help England, and maybe the rest of the world, to live more fully despite its present difficulties. I want to make everyone aware of the immense riches round about them in everyday life.’
‘Through TV? Through television? What can you do for television viewers? You can’t make them switch the set off, can you? I’ve no time for it. Fat lot it has to do with individual life. Paralysis, more to the point.’
With spirit, Squire said, ‘I believe that television has much to do with individual life. Continual box-watching is sad, I agree, sad because it shows you how lacking in opportunities is the average life. But television touches everyone as no art medium has ever done; it represents the triumph of photography, and the wonder is that it’s as good as it is. It must be respected. Why not respect it, develop it, now, rather than mourn for it when it is superseded, as no doubt it will be?’
The waitress had brought the bill on a saucer. Squire brushed away his uncle’s hand and produced some money.
Willie shook his head. ‘I’ve got a set in my flat. Never switch it on, except for the news. Give me a good book any day. Harrison Ainsworth, he’s a good author. I’m just rereading The Tower of London. It’s full of incident and good description.’
‘Very pleasant, I’m sure, Uncle.’ He signalled impatiently to the waitress. ‘You do not refute, you illustrate what I was saying. Carlyle said people always loved the past and the things of the past because it was safe, whereas the future was dangerous, since it had still to be negotiated.’
‘Carlyle was a sensible chap.’
They parted outside the shop, shaking hands. Squire walked briskly in the direction of the Castle. He was angry with himself, he hardly knew why; he had been harsher than he intended with his revered relation.
Nicholas Dobson came hurrying up and fell into step with him. ‘You are upset, and I don’t blame you. I have to say to you that some of us at least support you. You add lustre to the family, Tom, and God knows it could do with it. We’re a miserable lot, the Dobsons even worse than the Squires. We’re just lived lives of dull Norfolk monotony for centuries. As for Uncle Willie’s moans about TV, he’s just a disappointed old man. He doesn’t—’
Squire had slowed his pace. Now he halted. ‘No, Willie’s a fine man. If he’s disappointed, it’s because most people end up disappointed if they had any guts in them originally. They start out in life with high hopes and high ambitions which maybe circumstances prevent them from fulfilling, or they can’t overcome their own limitations. Uncle Willie never quite achieved the career he wished for himself. That isn’t to say that he hasn’t been an honourable man, and served others well thereby. I admire Uncle Willie and won’t hear a word against him. I was too quick with him.’
Dobson put his hands in his pockets. ‘You make me ashamed of myself,’ he said, grinning and looking far from ashamed. ‘But I have to listen to Uncle Willie holding forth a lot more than you do.’
‘It was good of you to come after me.’ He clapped the young man’s arm. ‘If you’ve got time to spare, visit the Castle exhibition with me.’
They crossed Bedford Street and climbed the many steps up to Norwich Castle. Squire got out of breath more easily than once he did. After a word with the keeper, who was an old friend of Squire’s, the two men went into the exhibition. It was crowded with tourists. This was not Squire’s favourite way of viewing any exhibition, but he had been abroad when it visited London.
They regarded objects which had come from the Siberian Collection of Peter the Great. Many articles had been preserved by cold, as articles in Egypt were preserved by the dry atmosphere. There were decorations of wood and leather which had once adorned the horses of nomads. All that remained of the dreaded Scythians rested here behind glass: a woollen pigtail case, part of a boot, a child’s fur coat dating from five centuries before Christ. Chance survivors of their culture, these artifacts were beyond price; isolated from it, they were inscrutable. Whilst the permutations of chance which brought them to this foreign place were incalculable.
Since Nicholas Dobson still seemed eager for company, Squire took him to his favourite pub, The Pyed Bull on the Market Square, for lunch after the exhibition. The pub was crowded. They bumped into two of Dobson’s friends, both of whom were cheerful, out of work, and engaged in touring the country picketing nuclear power plants. They regarded nuclear power as too dangerous to use. When Squire offered them a few statistics on the excellent safety record of the industry, they listened politely, smiling a bit, and then went on enthusiastically about the success they had had at Dungeness.
‘There are many reasons why the country needs to develop nuclear power,’ Squire said. ‘I’m sure you know the arguments, and I won’t bore you with them, but it is at present the best practical alternative to coal and oil.’
‘We’ll just have to go without oil when it runs out,’ one of the young men said. He wore a T-shirt with the words ‘Sid Vicious’ across the chest, but was otherwise well-mannered. ‘Get rid of all the cars spoiling towns.’
‘And the lorries, trains, planes, and ships delivering the goods we need,’ Squire said.
‘There’ll be something else,’ said the other young man. ‘Something always turns up, doesn’t it? We’ll develop Uri Geller powers, telepathy, telekinesis … The powers of the human mind are unlimited.’
Almost despite himself, Squire said, ‘Unfortunately, history gives no indication that that is so. The mind has its limitations – it’s almost impossible to pass on the fruits of experience, for instance. Civilizations make mistakes and fossilize and go under. If we continue to impede latest developments by picketing nuclear plants, or pretend that things turn up of their own accord instead of resulting from hard work and applied intelligence, then we shall go down the drain too.’
‘We’re down the drain already, aren’t we?’ The two young men laughed and soon took their leave.
‘Sorry about that, Tom,’ Dobson said. ‘I knew they’d annoy you. They were doing it half as a lark.’
‘I wasn’t annoyed. They told me what they felt. I told them what I felt. I suppose they regard me as an old-fashioned old man with silly ideas. All the same, you observe that the pendulum has swung dramatically – ten years ago, the man in my position would have been conservative and against nuclear plants. The youngsters